Lyric Prose |
“Uranus’ OKCupid Profile”
“Why all this emphasis on having a solid surface? What’s wrong with being a mass of churning liquid? What even is a surface anyway?”
Poetry |
“The Garden State”
“I keep an artificial hydrangea in my vase, / its pale blue shot-through with khaki. // In Jersey, we called them snowballs, / so much fuller than roses, so weirdly azure …”
Poetry |
“Half the Hour” & “Measure”
“For a poem ‘Close Is Far and Figured’ I plotted stanzas and rhythm / simply to fulfill the title // “Close is far” back then was a sad young man on the crowded F train / his thumb slowly swiping texted photos of his mother …”
Poetry |
“Broken Coffee Break”
“I stroll up to my favorite out-of-town coffee shop/ and find it closed for good. Through the black glass,/ a naked counter, stools scattered, space thrown open / to conjecture and rats, stillness, indifference.”
Lyric Prose |
“Breakfast,” “The Summit” & “The Red Bike”
“It was Tuesday, Tuesday with no Wednesday to follow, no Monday to precede. The hour hand on the clock whirled like a propellor, so fast it stood motionless. The second hand inched forward, unbearably slow.”
Poetry |
“The ‘Gfit'”
“… it was early in the pandemic,/ even though I thought maybe it was getting / towards the end of the pandemic, / and I didn’t have cancer, or if I did, / I didn’t know I had cancer …”
Poetry |
“My Mother” and “Malcah”
“I strained to serve as her first son. // She sang songs from WWI with her father that she sang / again, but who would listen? Not I, clearly her worst son.”
Literature in Translation |
from The Thorn Puller
“I went to Asakusa in Tokyo hoping to gain 46,000 days’ worth of virtue. Tradition says that a visit to Sensoji temple on that day is the equivalent of making pilgrimages for 46,000 days in a row. I’d planned to meet a gardening expert in Tokyo for work, and July 10 was the only day before the Obon holidays I had any free time.”
Essay |
“Echolocation”
“Just before a suicide there is – trust me — a split-second stripped of tormenting voices and mocking tunes and whatever injury or guilt, rage or despair led to this enormous silence.”
Poetry |
“The White Hare”
“You saw it first in a dream: / the white hare bounding over / tufted knolls, the sun arcing / toward sable twilight”
Poetry |
“Thank Plankton”
“Well, they are gone, and here it comes, / the August sun, with the momentum of a rolling boil, / to blanch the greens and blues from leaves of grass / and trees and lighten boughs / by grafting absence where sap has stopped.”
Poetry |
“Negentropy”
“Is light / more like the waves sloshing ashore, or // the shore itself, all seven quintillion grains, / give or take?”
Literature in Translation |
from Final Judgements
“In art, as in any other activity, it is advisable to imitate for as long as possible. Only when there is no other choice does it become tolerable to be original.”
Poetry |
“Comedy (iii),” “Preparation of the Dead Girl or Preparation of the Bride” & “Roxies in Savasana”
“As far as Courbet’s knowing could carry him, the girl was dead. She was dead & then made marriageable, badly resurrected by an agent, white dress layered over her naked body.”
Poetry |
“A Few Wars”
“They’re reaching out to us with their guns. / They must want to make a difference // to someone — it’s us they hail now …”